The Royal Hunt: 2003, 2005-2014, 2016-2024


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Yes and no.

Here is the list and my own key to the names (letter).
Salgschef, Outfit International A/S Peter Ringsted (A)

Hofjægermester, godsejer Peter A. Busck (A)

Adm. direktør for Bestseller Retail Europe og ejer af Fasterholtgård Finn Poulsen (A + B)

Næstformand i Realdania, bestyrelsesformand for Arkitektskolen Aarhus Carsten With Thygesen (A + C)

Direktør for Museum Silkeborg Ole Nielsen (A)

Direktør Bo Anders Olesen (?)

Formand for Hjortevildtudvalget, hovedbestyrelsesmedlem Kreds 3, Danmarks Jægerforbund Torben Schulz Jensen (D)

Hovedbestyrelsesmedlem i Danmarks Jægerforbund Kreds 2 Norbert Frimann Veje Ravnsbæk (D)

Formand for Danmarks Jægerforbund Claus Lind Christensen (D)

Borgmester i Ikast-Brande Kommune Ib Boye Lauritsen (A)

Kommunaldirektør, Odder Kommune Henning Haahr Pedersen (A)

Direktør, ejer af Store Hjøllund Claus Kirk Thinggaard (A)

Formand for Hjortevildtgruppen Midtjylland, dyrlæge Hans Schougaard (D)

Head of Sales B2G/VIP, Skandinavisk Motor Co. A/S Brian Have (A)

Direktør for Nationalmuseet Rane Willerslev (E)

Kammerherre, hofjægermester, lensgreve Bendt Wedell (E + F)

Senior Project Manager Søren Bredvig (E)

Group CEO, FirstFarms A/S Anders H. Nørgaard

Bestyrelsesformand for JYSK Jacob Brunsborg (A)

Chefsergeant Henning Thisgaard (?)

Kammerherre, hofjægermester Thomas Harttung (F)

Adm. direktør, Blaser Group ApS Thomas Danielsen (A)

Skovrider i Søhøjlandet Søren Hald (Forester/game warden)

Kgl. jægermester, skovrider i Gribskov, hofjægermester Jens Bjerregaard Christensen (Forester/game warden + F)

A = Local dignitary or influential person, be that businessman or politician. Some of them belongs to the very discreet and influential (and very wealthy!) Jutlandic businessmen, some of whom M&F and also J&M quietly associate.

B = Influential person, perhaps also personal friend.

C = Directly supporting and funding protections and causes that M&F are involved with. - May be a personal friend.

D = Representatives for the Hunting Association.

E = Personal friend.

F = Courtier who has been awarded the title, perhaps also personal friend. Someone who has been given the full royal approval for reliability and integrity, otherwise you won't get such a title, let alone two!

- Being invited to a Royal Hunt is also an approval, hence the interest in who is attending.
 
Judging from the photos, and I could of course be very much mistaken, it seems to me that Vincent has reached the stage where he doesn't see the deeper purpose with horses - the critters haven't even got a throttle.

He has however always been the quiet observer though.

Josephine was obviously in her element. Having thousands of spectators to perform to - and no older sister with a sharp elbow nearby... :D

This year no rider fell off the horse and into the pond at the favorite obstacle.
 
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Quite a lot of coverage of this event. BB has put out no less than 10 articles about it! Let's face it...We all know Mary equals "clicks". And with the kids there, even more "clicks"! Many lovely photos from yesterday.
 
This is the grandest of the Royal Hunts.
You may recall the game-parades in torch-light from previous years.

It's a Central European tradition to have a game parade at the end of a hunt.
The animals are placed, often on twigs of fir with torches placed around the animals.
Then a number of signals and tunes are played on hunting-horns. Like The Hunt Is Over. And a tune in honor of the game. When that tune is played the gentlemen will remove their headgear in respect of the animals. Ladies however are not required to remove their headgear. Ladies being ladies, they are of course also allowed to keep their hats on indoor.

All this in accordance with the traditional school of hunting, which I understand most Danish hunters adhere to.
Previously old-school-hunters did not wear camouflage. Instead they wore a tweed suits in subdued colors and walking shoes, rather than boots. Complete with high socks. And of course a tie and a pull-over, often in a bright color, so that they could be seen by other hunters. Typically also with what we in DK call a hunters-hat in a hunter-green nuance.
The hat is often adorned with say a feather from a bird that is notoriously difficult to hunt, or something similar.
Frederik usually wear a hunters-hat at these hunts.
A traditional hunter will often also wear high-socks rather than trouser legs going down to the shoes.

And a must is of course a walking cane. It serves a number of purposes. For support wile waking, for prodding through shrubbery or poking at something. But also as a support while firing your rifle standing up. And if need be the cane can be used to crush the skull of a badger or a deer that isn't dead yet. Or more commonly to break the neck of a hare.

PH belonged to the old-school of hunters and that you could clearly tell from his attire. Fortunately deer are color-blind...
 
And here is the hunters hat Frederik is wearing:
https://billedbladet-prod.imgix.net...op=focalpoint&auto=format&ixlib=imgixjs-3.4.0

I see that he has adorned his hat, but not being a hunter myself, I can't go into any details. In the appropriate hue of course.

For comparison here we have PH's hunting attire. Or perhaps rather as a gentleman host at a hunt:
https://app.box.com/s/86zxg3a7uun4gdonizy35vjxb83h0hfy I do like his sixpence!
But here we have him attired for hunting at a post. (Where the game is driven towards the hunters.)
https://app.box.com/s/nh9tsmglvxnkuon6e6lec1p99d8jneyf
Again, what's not to love about his sixpence!

This a gentleman-hunter's attire around 1960. Notice the walking stick and how it's used. And also how much tradition regarding the attire that is maintained to this day.
https://app.box.com/s/vox02y5uxp72s5ckfoz7

The rifles have changed a little. Bolt action are still preferred in DK. With a max capacity of three rounds in the magazine. (The man in the photos is using a bolt-action rifle and what appears to be an over-under shotgun.)
Shotguns here are predominantly side-by-side.
Pump-action and lever-action let alone semi-automatics are very rare here.

But silencers have recently been allowed. - The winning argument was that it made it easier to shoot groups of say wild boars coming in from Germany. - They are basically shot on sight, because they may bring diseases with them which would devastate a very lucrative export of a pork to China and Japan in particular.

Bow-hunting is allowed in DK, but it requires special permits and you have to prove, regularly, that you can actually hit anything with a bow and arrow.

A most interesting video from the game parade. The men have removed their headgear, while horns play in the honor of the game.
https://www.bt.dk/royale/kongehuset-beklagede-mandsdomineret-gaesteliste-men-nu-er-det-sket-igen
(Officials like foresters do not remove their caps, they are on duty and in a position of authority.)

I may return to this article, but it's bedtime.
 
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The royal hunt is extremely polarized in the Netherlands, with animal welfare activists doing their best (legally) to obstruct the "fauna management" (read: hunt) on the royal domains.

It seems there are no such protests in Denmark?
 
The royal hunt is extremely polarized in the Netherlands, with animal welfare activists doing their best (legally) to obstruct the "fauna management" (read: hunt) on the royal domains.

It seems there are no such protests in Denmark?

The short and sweet answer is: No.

Hunting is not seen in a negative light here - there are of course those who are very much against hunting, but they are few and very rarely make an appearance anywhere.

There are some 70.000 licensed hunters in DK. Which means that most people know someone within their family and social circle who at least have a hunting license.
Most kindergartens are at some point visited by hunters, who bring their weapons and gear as well as animals that have been shot and explain what it is all about. They break an animal like a hare or deer and explain how it looks like inside, where it lives and what it eats and how it lives. And children ask direct questions where you as a hunter can't get away with a "political" answer. Your answer will have to be straight and clear.
So children are explained that animals are culled because they would otherwise starve. Not least old and infirm animals. Or because they ruin something, like scarves-droppings that ruin the trees. Or may bring deceases.
Okay, that makes sense.
And as many kindergartens have chicken and/or rabbits - that are sometimes killed and eaten, the idea of hunting for food makes sense as well.

Apart from that Danish Hunting Association work very closely with preservation and animal protection associations in keeping an eye on flora and fauna in the country - reports of sightings of all kinds are regularly send back online to the Ministry of Agriculture.
It's quite common for an amateur ornithologist who is adamant in protecting a particular bird, chatting with a hunter: The Bluebeaked Bullgull? Yeah, I saw a nest over there the other day while I was staking a deer.
With a amateur botanist interjecting: Oh yeah, that's where the blue mushrooms are. It's crawling with butterflies over there!
- You get my meaning? It's a cooperation of protecting and preserving the nature and the wildlife, because all of them are interested in as good a habitat as possible. If hungry deer in desperation eat all the shoots, it upsets the balance and those who want's to preserve the forests. Again affecting the insect population, which upsets the ornithologist because the birds mainly live of insects.

At the same time one of the most popular evening-coffee TV-shows is about a hunter and a cook, who goes hunting for whatever animal. And while doing so, we learn about the animal, the habitat and traditions and history. Sometimes they get the animal they hunt, sometimes they don't - but in both cases they have an experience in being close to nature.

Danes don't have a theoretical relationship with nature. Even those living in downtown Copenhagen have at most 15 km to the nearest forest with red deer and pheasants.
I will claim that the overwhelming majority of Danes go to a forest, a real forest with wildlife, if not every week, then certainly every month.
So the sight of a deer, or hares or foxes is not something novel, even for city-dwellers. And you can easily tell if an animal is injured, sick or starving and most will call an emergency number and they will send a hunter and a dog to investigate and if need be kill the animal.

Something that does cause a huge commotion, is if the general public see animals who are starving. That happened recently not far from we live actually. As a part of a rewilding project a number of animals were let out in a reserve and left to fend for themselves, which is what nature is all about. Some won't make it. And nature is brutal, those who are not strong or well-adapted enough will starve to death. That caused a huge outcry!

So to sum up: In DK the issue is not hunting and killing animals, the issue is whether the animals have as good and natural life as possible during their lifetime.

There is no humanization or Disneyfization of animals in DK. Hence why Danes act with bewilderment when there is an outcry from abroad whenever a surplus animal in a zoo is killed and dissected publicly here.

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But back to the royal hunt.
https://www.bt.dk/royale/kongehuset-beklagede-mandsdomineret-gaesteliste-men-nu-er-det-sket-igen

I said I would return to this BT article.

There are two aspects in this:
A: Who attended. I'll return to that.
B: And why aren't there any women among the hunters?

That was brought up at a previous royal hunt where there were no women among the hunters and the DRF admitted: Yeah, true enough. We need to look into that.
And then this article comes up saying: There are still no women! The DRF haven't learned anything!

- No, because the invitations for the royal hunts went out months ago. Something the journalist might have learned if he had bothered calling the court. - But then he wouldn't have his headline...
And there is another factor. While the number of especially young women who get a hunters license is going up markedly these years, perhaps there were none of the women in the circles who are invited for these royals hunts this year, who wanted to go hunting?
What is the DRF supposed to do? Drag women kicking and screaming with them to a royal hunt, so that certain people can claim equality in that field as well? - Political correctness distinguish itself by being silly most of the time.

A third matter is that the royal hunt in Grib Forest near Fredensborg is the grandest of the royal hunts and traditionally the men go hunting - hosted by the senior male member of the DRF - Frederik.
While the ladies go on a cultural outing, hosted by the senior female member of the DRF - QMII and now also Mary.

But I guess next year they will have found a few ladies who would like to join the actual hunt and in the holy name of equality I suppose they will also have found a handful of men who will go on the cultural outing.

To the names. The guestlist of the royal hunt at Grib Forest is also a list of the nearest friends and associates of the DRF - today mainly of M&F. Because they have pretty much taken over.
In fact there were 19 names on the list at the actual hunt and indeed many names will be familiar to most here by now:
Fritz Schur, who handles the private finances and investments of the DRF.
Count Christoffer Knuth - friend.
Otto Reedtz Thott - close friend.
Peter Aaendahl - friend.
And so on and so on.

The old names we used to see when PH ran the show, are mostly long gone. They were friends and associated of QMII and PH.
 
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Thanks Muhler. I have a question, when PH hosted the hunt was his name included as host along with QMII? It seems Frederik hosts the hunt portion of the evening so wondering why he wasn't included as a host in the calendar. Was this the same when PH hosted the hunt?
 
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I don't know.

I know that PH was listed as the host at the other royal hunts, because he was often the only DRF member there and he really was the host.

But at the Grand Royal Hunt, I guess the Regent Couple were listed as hosts.
 
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I don't know.

I know that PH was listed as the host at the other royal hunts, because he was often the only DRF member there and he really was the host.

But at the Grand Royal Hunt, I guess the Regent Couple were listed as hosts.

Interesting....thanks.

And thanks for the explanation in the post above about the purpose of the hunts and the education that goes on about them.
 
To me it appears they managed to find and invite two women of the female kind for this hunt.

Well, that's one more criticism refuted...
 
If you're going to hunt animals to feed your family, I get that, but displaying the corpses like spoils of war is appallingly barbaric. It's great that the meat is going to be used and therefore it's not killing for the sake of killing, but just take the deer to wherever it will be dressed and take care of it then. Don't lay out the dead animals on the front lawn for everyone to gawk at. I agree that children should know where the food they eat comes from, whether it's lettuce or a hamburger, but there are other, less grotesque ways of educating them about the sources of their food.

You can keep some aspects of this tradition alive while ditching others.
 
If you're going to hunt animals to feed your family, I get that, but displaying the corpses like spoils of war is appallingly barbaric. It's great that the meat is going to be used and therefore it's not killing for the sake of killing, but just take the deer to wherever it will be dressed and take care of it then. Don't lay out the dead animals on the front lawn for everyone to gawk at. I agree that children should know where the food they eat comes from, whether it's lettuce or a hamburger, but there are other, less grotesque ways of educating them about the sources of their food.

You can keep some aspects of this tradition alive while ditching others.
I agree with you! This practice, or "tradition" as some might call it, has really fallen out of the time we are living in! Presenting dead corpses of innocent animals is barbaric indeed and should be something of a more violent past!
 
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That's not how the hunters see it.

The game parade is meant to show respect for the animals. - Considerably more respect than pigs in a slaughterhouse are offered.

I don't believe hunting, or in this case culling, is something that should be hidden away as though it was something shameful.
It is much more shameful not to cull the animals and let them starve to death instead. It's the weak, old and bambis who die first.

So people may sit in the cities and feel good about animals not being culled, but those of us who live in the countryside we see the result of that. By mid winter the deer are so desperate they start finding food along the highways and roads - and are hit, but not always killed right away, by the most dangerous predator in DK: The car.
Or being so desperate they walk into gardens to find food there, only to be bitten by dogs, because they are too weak to defend themselves.
But why not lay food out for them, some may ask. Because it makes no difference. The strong animals will eat all they can and chase away the weaker animals. There is no sharing in nature.

So what is better?
Live a normal deer-life in the forests and suddenly die.
Or let nature keep the population down, the hard way, with disease and starvation.

I wonder when Prince Christian will join the Royal Hunt. Do you need to be 18 to do that in Denmark?

You have to be sixteen in order to pass a test to get your hunting license and be registered as a hunter. Without a license no hunting. Without a license you will have big problems buying ammunition and weapons for hunting.
You have to renew your license at least every ten years and if you are convicted of a more serious crime (mainly what we personfarlig kriminalitet = various forms of assault and such) you may lose your license.
Or if you do not transport, store or handle your weapons safely or according to the legislation (I.e moved in a locked transport box and stored in a gun-safe at home.) then you can lose not only your weapons but also your license.

A little more than 1 % of the population are registered as having a hunting license.
 
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The game parade is meant to show respect for the animals. - Considerably more respect than pigs in a slaughterhouse are offered.

One, no one is or has compared how animals are killed in slaughterhouses to hunting. No one with a working brain thinks the environment in slaughterhouses is humane. Two, Native Americans show a lot of respect for animals they kill for food and other needs without laying out the carcasses like a museum exhibit. They say prayers to their gods for the bounty of the land, and they send a prayer in thanks to the animal for giving up their life so that their people could have food or shelter (in the case of the hide).

I don't believe hunting, or in this case culling, is something that should be hidden away as though it was something shameful.
It is much more shameful not to cull the animals and let them starve to death instead. It's the weak, old and bambis who die first.

I don't think hunting or fishing to provide food for your family or your community is shameful, but the people I know who hunt deer or other game to provide fresh meat for their families throughout the winter don't arrange the remains on their front lawns for everyone to stand around and smile at. That is revolting. I'm sorry, but it is. You kill the deer, you take them to wherever they're going to be field dressed, then you put the meat into storage. Same goes for fish or wild boars or moose or elk or whatever other animals can legally be hunted in your area.

As I said, I'm all for children understanding where their food comes from and that there is a circle of life on this planet that all living beings take part in, but there is a way to impart that knowledge to a child that doesn't involve them standing around looking at a macabre modern art installation.
 
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